Belgian Grand Prix Preview: Red Bull, McLaren Look to Impress Before Summer Break

The top two teams in the championship standings need to smooth over lingering tension from Hungary by making a statement in the final race before some time off. Plus, what to watch for on the drivers’ market.

Piastri and McLaren look to build off of last week’s 1–2 finish in Hungary. / David Kirouac-USA TODAY Sports

McLaren made its strongest statement of the season on Sunday as Oscar Piastri claimed his first career win and teammate Lando Norris capped a 1–2 finish at the Hungarian Grand Prix. The victory wasn’t entirely without controversy, though, setting the table for a rather intriguing dynamic at the final race before the summer break: the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix.

Of course, McLaren isn’t the only team that has something to sort out ahead of the time off. Red Bull is dealing with an increasingly frustrated Max Verstappen and a consistently underperforming Sergio Pérez in recent weeks. Ferrari is lurking but has landed just one podium since Charles Leclerc’s win in Monaco exactly two months ago. The rest of the paddock is maneuvering a complicated drivers’ market with just a few pieces of the puzzle left to click into place on the 2025 grid.

Here’s more on what to watch ahead of this Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.

McLaren moving on and maintaining momentum

One would think that the first 1–2 finish in three years should be cause for full celebration in the McLaren garage. However, hairy management of pit stops and car order by the team last weekend led to a tense dynamic between Piastri and Norris, both in the closing laps in Hungary and after the checkered flag.

Norris ultimately let his teammate by, giving up his own shot at a second win in F1 to give Piastri his first. But McLaren had to beg, and at times emotionally negotiate with, its own driver after giving him the advantage for the final 20 or so laps. That’s not exactly a good sign of a harmonious relationship between the team and its best hope to compete for a drivers championship.

Now, the team was wise to make the move in order to cover off the rest of the field and secure a front row lockout and maximum points. At the end of the day, that was the most important result of Sunday’s race and all of the other discussion doesn’t have to be as big of a deal—so long as McLaren doesn’t make it one.

Norris admitted that his own reaction to the situation may have clouded Piastri’s maiden win, a notion he said was “something I’ve not felt too proud about.” However, he made it clear that he spoke with his teammate and his team and was eager to put the discussion about the topic behind him to focus on the positive.

If there were any doubts going into Hungary about McLaren having the superior car on the grid, those have been dismissed as the paddock heads to Spa. Norris and Piastri have an opportunity for one last statement before the break and if they make one, any sort of lingering drama will be an afterthought by the time they return to the grid in late August.

Managing Verstappen amid growing angst at Red Bull

The two-time reigning world champion has been noticeably out of sorts the last few weeks. The usually cool and calculated Verstappen has been lashing out at his team on the radio and has made contact with other drivers in two of the last three races—Norris in Austria and Lewis Hamilton in Hungary. The pressure from McLaren is on, and so far, the Red Bull driver hasn’t managed it well, full stop.

Though Verstappen and his team still lead in both the driver and constructor standings, everyone at Red Bull seems to be on edge. Much was made about the 26-year-old’s decision to drive in a late-night sim race the night before the Hungarian Grand Prix, so much so that team principal Christian Horner had to dismiss the idea that Verstappen’s irritability on the radio was the result of staying up too late. Advisor Helmut Marko did the same earlier this week but also claimed that the team and its star driver agreed that he would no longer participate in virtual races so late at night during race weekends. (Verstappen later disputed Marko’s comments and said he would not change his approach to communicating with the team on the radio during races.)

Frankly, whether or not a three-time F1 champion is getting enough sleep is an absurd talking point. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Verstappen’s night owl tendencies have no impact on his performance on Sundays. (He won in Imola after video showed him participating in a sim race well into the early hours of the morning on the day of the Grand Prix.) But the difference now is that Red Bull is being tested. McLaren, and even Ferrari and Mercedes, are applying the pressure and everyone seems ready to put a crack in Verstappen’s invincibility.

It doesn’t help that Red Bull is getting little help from its second driver, or that Verstappen is anticipating having to take a 10-place grid penalty for swapping engines in Spa, but a three-time world champion is held to a different standard. Whether or not he can rise to meet that benchmark this season might very well depend on how he responds to the recent wave of criticism in Belgium. If there’s another mistake or series of unsavory interactions on the team radio, the noise will only get louder at a time when Red Bull is desperate to silence any detractors.

A drivers’ market check-in

Haas became the latest team to round out its 2025 lineup, inking Esteban Ocon to a multiyear deal just days after Kevin Magnussen announced he would not be returning. Ocon, a veteran who’s had a rather rocky year at Alpine, will join Oliver Bearman in a complete revamp for Haas, one of the current campaign’s more pleasant midfield surprises.

Very proud to announce I will be joining @HaasF1Team in 2025 on a multi-year deal.

I am thrilled to embark on this new chapter in my F1 career and join an ambitious racing team whose spirit, work ethic, and undeniable upward trajectory has really impressed me. I’d like to thank… pic.twitter.com/8ZrYV6Jdz1

— Esteban Ocon (@OconEsteban) July 25, 2024

The signing leaves just five seats remaining: one each at Mercedes, RB, Alpine, Williams and Sauber. Nearly every one of those openings will be dictated by a pair of decisions in the coming weeks: one from Red Bull and one from Carlos Sainz.

Whispers of a move by the reigning world champs has been in the air for a number of weeks given Pérez’s recent run of dreadful form. What exactly that move is, however, remains unclear. The top options, should Red Bull opt for a midseason switch, would logically be RB’s Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, or reserve driver Liam Lawson. Of course, grabbing from RB would then cause a domino effect, leaving a different open seat on the grid in 2025, but Red Bull’s immediate priority lies with this season. Pérez holds the job for now but his position is tenuous at best going into Belgium.

As for Sainz, the interested teams seem to be playing a waiting game as they wait for the Ferrari driver to make a decision. All three of his primary suitors—Sauber (soon-to-be Audi), Alpine and Williams—have an opening going into the summer break and appear to be waiting for the Spaniard to make his choice before looking elsewhere. Expect the rest of the chips to quickly fall into place when Sainz finally makes his announcement, which at this point seems to be coming in August.

As for Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli still seems to be the front-runner for the job. The 17-year-old phenom wowed last week in Hungary, dominating the field to pick up his second win in F2. However, there’s some question about Toto Wolff’s thought process and if the team really is out of the Sainz sweepstakes. Mercedes’s performance in recent weeks suggests that it’s not quite as far away from competing for championships as it seemed to be the last few years. A proven winner like Sainz could be the perfect pair alongside George Russell to launch the Silver Arrows back to the top in 2024.